Herd immunity in the USA is just not going to happen any time soon. As a professional optimist, I also believe in facts and the facts are not enough people are getting vaccinated. At first it was, “Wear masks to protect each other” and now it’s “wear a mask to protect the unvaccinated.” That one…
Category: Life Happens
Assessing Your Peace Portfolio: Be Kind to Unkind People
Before you jump down my throat hear me out. I’ve been scorned way too many times for me to still be a professional optimist and I know this and don’t understand this. It’s not going to make me less chipper though. It will make me wiser. As the only girl amongst my mom’s two boys…
Grounded: How Quitting My Flight Attendant Job Helped Me Soar
I quit being a flight attendant seven years ago. I wasn’t bad at the job but I don’t think the opportunity happened at the right time for me. After all, I showed up at the interview ever so nonchalant. After reading how hard the selection process was I was certain that they would never pick…
Millennial Mayor Check In
As it’s the last year of my term and it’s been a while since 29-year-old me was sworn in as the youngest mayor in Braddock History. I’ll never forget being whisked into council chambers and being briefed about all things Braddock Affairs. There was an array of conversations all at once. The police department oversaw…
May Your Coffee Be Strong and Your Patience Be Stronger
With chaos comes clarity or the chaos wasn’t worth it. When the pandemic first started, the days felt like weeks and weeks felt like months. Here we are more than a year in and days seem like seconds, my to-do list grows as the annoying weeds in my backyard that Mother Nature keeps watering. Personally,…
Two Distant Strangers
Today a cop was charged with manslaughter for killing a black man in broad daylight in front of a crowd. It may be the closest thing to justice we will see as accountability has been far in between. Recently, I watched a Netflix movie titled Two Distant Strangers about a guy who wakes up at…
Lead By Example: Why I Got Vaccinated
“Get last-minute vaccine appointment,” wasn’t in my Google Calendar yesterday but when I got the call to be in the Southside within an hour, I dropped everything and went. I almost forgot I had added myself to a waitlist that calls people when others cancel their appointments last minute. This keeps doctors from wasting a…
Don’t Let Past Luggage Sink Your Current Relationship
I love the ship metaphor for relationships. If both parties are working together to keep the ship afloat it’s smooth(ish) sailing (you can’t control the weather). If not, you’re going to sink. It may not be as fast as the Titanic but it’s inevitable. Finishing my first poetry book Return to Sender was the closure…
Emotional Maturity: Stop Attending Every Circus You’re Invited to
Most of the time I was the only girl among four brothers. Crying and whining wasn’t really tolerated so I learned to adapt. I don’t know what it is or where it came from but the ability to pack my emotions away became second nature as if I was taking vacations left and right. The…
Not to Burst Your Bubble: Your Pandemic Pod is Way Too Big
You know how they say that every time you have sex with a new person you’ve had sex with everyone they’ve had sex with and so on and so forth? Let’s think of our pandemic pods as so. If you’re in America, there’s a high probability that your pod has burst long ago. Someone in…
